Sunday, July 17, 2011

Tree Rings

Lady Longleaf needs to explain tree rings to the Sierra Club graphic designer. I got some bulk mail from them with a poster in it that made me utter a string of obscenities so vile the rats in my ceiling started coughing.

This is the poster. I'm pretty sure that end view of a tree isn't even a Sequoia, and it damn sure isn't 3,500 years old.

What the hell?! That first interval is about 4 years, not 177. I think this is a farm raised tree. How in the hell did they decide where to put these marks? Half an inch is 100 years?

I have a counter back in Beachton made from virgin longleaf that has 100 years of rings in about an inch. I don't have a picture of it with me, but I do have a table my uncle made out of some old growth longleaf.

See how tiny these rings are? And not all perfectly even. This is how trees with a long lifespan grow in a forest.

Here's another piece of longleaf I have here in Texas. It's a stud cut out of my ancestral home when my aunt put in a French door. This tree was cut down over 100 years ago and was easily over 100 years old at the time. (This is ~58 years worth of rings right here.) Something unusual happened to open up a bright spot in the woods in a wet couple of years so it could grow really fast when it was young. My countertop tree has about 300 rings in this same space.

The Sierra Club should have access to better tree ring images or at least more resourceful designers. I mean, this is what I can come up with just in my own house. I'm extremely annoyed that the people involved in making this poster have jobs and I don't.

Sure, Jane, if it's non-commercial you may use my photo as a background. If you have your own copyright notice somewhere at the bottom of your web page in tiny type you could put in a photo credit, photo by Barbara Tomlinson or something like that.

Hi Barbara,This seems to be a trend. I’m a graphic designer in New Hampshire. One of my clients is a family attraction that gives visitors the opportunity to guide themselves on boardwalks through a river gorge, numerous boulder caves, through some old growth forest, etc. They’ve asked me to design a series of signs that will be installed at various locations along the boardwalk; one of the signs provides information about a specific tree along the path as well as a bit of information about determining tree age by counting the rings. Needless to say, this is where your photo comes in—I was hoping that you’d allow me to use it on this sign. We’ll be happy to provide a credit line on the photo.

Other than via this comment, I don’t know how to contact you—is there an email or something?

Usually people contact me through Google+ or twitter from the links on the right side of the blog. Or I use their contact link from the comment to get back to them. Your contact info in Google isn't filled in though so I can't get to you. I don't like to put my email address on the blog because of the mailer daemons. If you contact me through Google+ I can link you to a higher resolution photo of the tree rings you can use.

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Small Years

In 2012 I did a Small Year. My intention was to spend as little money as possible and stay home all the time. In January 2012 I bought two Spartan Aircraft aluminum caravans, 31 feet long, 8 feet wide, manufactured in 1949 and 1951.

In the spring of 2013 I completed the conversion of the 1951 Spartan into a permanent lab and laundry room. It is now my knitting and sewing lab.

2016 was my smallest year yet.

2017 was on the medium size of small. I started working on 20 versions of the Royal Game of UR in 2017.

2018 was not as small as 2016 but smaller than 2017. I kept working on Royal Game of UR.

2019 was been slightly less small than 2018 so far. I went to the coast so that expanded my range by two counties. I've got 20 versions of the game of 20 squares ready for 2020. They're all 20% off on my Etsy shop all year.

In 2020 I am launching a video series for the Buck Rivet Report and restarting that blog.